Aramco among top global digital companies according to 2021 Gartner digital maturity assessment

The company recently concluded the 2021 Digital Maturity assessment and scored in the top quartile among the top six global industry peers. The evaluation was done through Gartner, an American research and consulting company, and it included an analysis of 35 admin areas in the organization with more than 470 digital capabilities. 

This assessment required more than 700 engagement meetings where a committee reviewed and assessed more than 3,000 unique initiatives, and resulted in more than 250 recommendations corporatewide.

The assessment has shown Aramco’s digital maturity is improving reliably by 56%, surpassing most peers since the first assessment in 2019.

We are working smarter by implementing a range of IR 4.0 technologies that are capturing value and optimizing efficiency across many aspects of our workplace — delivering greater sustainability, resilience and value to our stakeholders.
— Nabil A. Al-Nuaim, Aramco’s chief digital officer

Benchmarking for success

The assessment supports the company in identifying new opportunities for growth and improvement to energize parts of the business that are not as mature in their implementation as the rest of the organizations. As a result, this will help increase business agility, and identify new digital ecosystems and governance models. 

“We are moving ahead with confident steps in our Digital Transformation journey. This year we witnessed a 19% increase of digital initiatives across the company’s Business Lines compared to the last year, where we recorded over 3,000 unique initiatives to improve the company’s business,” said Fahad A. Al-Dossary, head of Digital Strategy, Investment and Growth Organization.

“It was an eye-opening experience to identify areas for improvement and to reap low hanging benefits with higher rewards,” said Fawaz A. Al-Madhi, head of the Digital Transformation Assessment Team. 

Building on strengths

In an effort to become the leading digitalized energy company globally in innovation and value creation, Aramco has undergone a complete digital transformation journey. The company launched the Digital Transformation Program (DTP) with the goal of creating a ripple of guided disruptions in the business.

The DTP initiative was not only required to strengthen the digital business position of the company, but also to leverage state-of-the-art digital solutions to optimize company operations. The digital maturity assessment is an important step toward successfully implementing business digital transformation in this digital era.

The digital maturity assessment is a measure of the company’s ability to create value through leveraging digital capabilities, such as digital twin, augmented reality, virtual reality, machine learning, artificial intelligence, etc. Having a high-level of maturity ensures the business’ competitive advantage in several areas, including revenue growth, cost efficiency, product quality, and customer satisfaction. 

Unlocking potential 

To begin this ambitious journey, the Digital Transformation Office set a baseline through benchmarking the company’s digital capabilities against other leading companies in the same industry. The digital assessment framework includes four main quadrants: digital business, digital optimization, operating model, and digital platforms.